October 13-19, 2024

The arrival of freezing temperatures and rain

David Lukas

Oct 19, 2024 • 5 min read

Fall colors along the Methow River. Photo by David Lukas

Temperatures continue to drop, and while fresh snow dusts the high peaks, and mornings in the valley start to drop below freezing, the days have been oscillating between being weakly sunny or simply cloudy.

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Week in Review

It looks like cottonwoods have finally reached their peak colors, and on a sunny day the deep yellows and oranges of these trees along the river are breathtaking—even a simple drive to town becomes a challenge when there are so many colors to look at!

fall colors along Methow River — Peak colors along the Methow River. Photo by David Lukas

But fall colors haven't been the only visual treats this week. We also had a dusting of fresh snow in the mountains, a dramatic morning of lifting fog, and a dazzling Hunter Moon supermoon.

fresh snow in mountains — Fresh snow on West Craggy and Big Craggy Peaks. Photo by David Lukas

fog in Methow Valley — Dynamically shifting fog over the Methow Valley. Photo by David Lukas

The Hunter Moon supermoon setting at sunrise. Photo by Steve Merrill

One fun, and unusual, wildlife sighting this week was a long-tailed weasel. These voracious carnivores may linger in one area for a couple days, but they quickly eat all the local prey or scare them into hiding, so weasels are almost constantly on the move, and you'll be lucky to ever see one.

I haven't noticed as many groups of white-crowned sparrows this week, but other birds have been active, including a handful of notable species seen during a stop at Pearrygin Lake.

If you're used to seeing pure white adults, you might not recognize these dusky-gray juveniles as **snow geese**. Photo by Libby Schreiner

Along with the continuing bird at Big Twin Lake, this **western grebe** at Pearrygin Lake means that there are at least two individuals in the Methow Valley right now. Photo by Libby Schreiner

red-necked grebe — **Red-necked grebes** breed in northern Canada and occasionally stop in the Methow Valley as they migrate to the Pacific coast for the winter. Photo by Libby Schreiner

Pileated woodpeckers are widespread but not often seen in the Methow Valley because they have huge territories. These large birds are typically associated with older, undisturbed conifer forests, but they also use stands of big old cottonwoods along rivers. They stick around all year because the insect larvae they find on tree trunks are available even in the middle of winter.

It's definitely the end of the season, but there are still a handful of insects and other invertebrates out and about. One remarkable sighting this week was a scorpion, which are expected in the valley but so rarely encountered that most people don't think about them. Fortunately, our scorpions are not poisonous.

The **northern scorpion** (*Paruroctonus boreus*) is a hardy, cold-tolerant scorpion that occurs from northern Arizona to southern British Columbia. Photo by Leaf Seaburg

It's still possible to find late-lingering grasshoppers and **praying mantises,** but very few are still around. Photo by Joe Beckett

mayfly — I don't know much about the seasonality of **mayflies**, but I've been surprised to see a handful of them over the past week. Photo by David Lukas

Observation of the Week: Pine Siskins

Pine siskins are small, easily overlooked finches. In fact, I was shocked one summer when I hiked up to a high North Cascades pass and used the Merlin app on my phone to identify the countless, unseen birds calling in the trees around me and discovered that pine siskins were everywhere!

However, after the breeding season, these extremely social finches gather in large flocks and wander far and wide in search of food. These movements are irregular and unpredictable, but if you're in an area where there's a lot of food then you're almost certainly going to run into some of these flocks.

pine siskins — Pine siskins are nearly always found in noisy, social flocks. Photo by David Lukas

Among their favorite foods are the seeds found in alder cones, and alder cones are ripe right now, so on your next walk you might notice flocks of noisily chattering pine siskins in alder trees along the river.

Unlike other finches, which have stout, seed-crunching bills, pine siskins have slender, narrowly pointed bills that are specialized for handling large numbers of small seeds very efficiently. These sharp bills are perfectly designed for quickly extracting tiny seeds from alder cones, and siskins will also eat other tiny seeds like those of grasses, thistles, or composite flowers.

Siskins use their bills like forceps to extract and handle tiny seeds. Photo by David Lukas

Because they're smaller and lighter than other finches, siskins can cling to small cones or slender stems and gather seeds that heavier finches can't access. Due to their weight and unique bills, pine siskins reign supreme in the small ecological niche they're adapted for.

If you offer thistle seed over the winter, flocks of pine siskins will be regular visitors in your yard, and then in the spring, when they disappear. just know that they've headed into the mountains to breed.